I'm Austin, a senior Psychology and Anthropology double major from Kernersville, North Carolina. Growing up in Kernersville my family received a lot of help from family, loved ones, community members, and even strangers. Though we struggled financially, my mom instilled a strong sense of service and giving back, even when you might not have much to give back at all. Coming to Carolina has been an amazing experience for me and allowed me to integrate service into my every day life. This course has so far has been a "capstone" course for my college career in several ways. It is the summation of all my service work as I have shifted to very big questions about what is service and philanthropy and how we can channel this class grant into a way to help make big change. While I have had my individual Psychology and Anthropology capstones, this course has felt as the most influential in my big "send off" into real life. I have enjoyed our tough conversations about what to fund and why as well as learning to navigate over 20 different opinions into a cohesive and effective grant process.
Personally, I have been involved with our class's Community committee which is committee to getting the word out about the grant and connecting to the organizations from which we receive grants. From my past work at nonprofits, this community appeal the most to me as I stride to forge deeper and more meaningful connections to the community I am involved with. From my work with the Community Empowerment Fund, APPLES Service-Learning, UNC Men's Project as well as schizophrenia research on campus I have become committed to my community and its improvement. This course has allowed me to further this commitment and explore another side of it I haven't seen before. Outside of class, I enjoy making music, scouring the digital library of Netflix, and finding new dogs to pet.
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